Redemption
by RussetHunter
Summary: A fanfiction about the Governor and Earl Sutton from The Walking Dead comics. All information and about is in the beginning of the story.


The Walking Dead Comic Book Collab with Ēårł Hïlltøp'Blåckśmïth Süttøn (also known as Chårłês Våinglôriòus-Båstärd Våiñ, Daryl Pookie-Dixön, Tyreese Walker, and Negan TwdLucille on Facebook).

Link to his Earl FB page -  . ?id=100006958425460&fref=tl_fr_box

About: When the whole world goes to hell the survivors go along with it. But, when the Governor escapes the time that was supposed to be his ultimate demise he escapes only to last a couple more years until he ventures into the land of the Hilltop Colony where he meets Earl, a blacksmith of the Hilltop. Nobody knows nothing of Philip's past, but can he still redeem himself after all the damage he had done with the help of some strangers?

Chapter 1: A New Start

Time had become irrelevant lately to the former Governor. The title had stripped itself away during the passing time and he had stopped keeping track of the days. Every day consisted of the same pattern: walking, sleeping, a couple sips of water drink he had on him, and an energy bar. All items were kept in a backpack that was held over his shoulder. His single hand held his knife loosely as he walked all around. Every now and then he would pull out a map to check where he was going. He had ventured all around Georgia and headed up around the other states seeing if he could find anything, but with not an ounce of luck he ran into nothing.

Once he had set a course for another specific area he went out of his way just to get there. As he got closer he thought he heard slight noise, it wasn't loud but just enough in the distance as it sounded like voices or something was being worked on. Slowly he approached the sight only to see a decent setup come into view.

Earl Sutton. Your friendly neighbourhood blacksmith, he'd always get out on the gates to talk to Kal now and them, though it was a fair climb. His job was a great deal, to create all not ranged weapons for the residents of the Hilltop community. He lived day to day with utmost respect for it, people would kill for his position, if he were to stop, the community would crumble. Though he was far too caring and moralistic for the community.

At a Tuesday evening, the sun going down, though rather light, Earl was working overtime after a run had gone wrong, leaving a large load of weaponry behind. Gregory, the cocky, disliked leader of the Hilltop had ordered a blade, not a small one, something of a Kukri design "Just...a little...tightening...there! Done!" Earl cooled the newly smithed blade and lifted it into the air admiring it, placing it in front of the sun, blocking overwhelming light. There was a figure, before Earl whistled to Kal to kill it, he realised the complexion was far too fine for that of a Walker's. Earl kept the blade in place to keep view "Excuse me, sir? Y'looking for entry?..." Earl spoke with a deep tone to sound more...masculine, though he was.

Philip dragged himself further towards the site only to hear a voice. The sun gleamed high above them so he shielded his eyes slightly with his hand and knife to get a better look. At first he wondered if he was really hearing and seeing things, but even after a few blinks he still saw the area ahead.

For a moment the man said nothing until he finally spoke up, his scratchy voice cracked from lack of talking. "Looking for entry? If you wouldn't mind that'd be great. I could be out by morning too." He wasn't so sure about just entering a new place so easily, but if he had to he could just leave in the morning. A little rest would kill him or just a little interaction with a human being instead of a dead figure.

After everything that had happened since the apocalypse started his emotions and physically appearance continually changed in some way. He tried to block out the thoughts of his old town and what it probably became, and the thoughts of his enemies evaded him too. Ever since then he avoided any groups until he had come across barren land and pavement until now. After he took a few more steps he stopped walking and stood there.

Kal and other guards raised their spears. Earl signalled them to lower their weapons. Earl walked our to him, tightening his bandana on the way out "Earl! Whatcha doin'?! We don't know him!" Kal shouted out. Earl looked and him with vast disapproval, Earl subdued the man's hand and took his knife. Upon seeing his figure Earl muttered "Prosthetics could do the job.." He limped him past the gates, the man had managed to come this far but the energy was clearly lacking.

People watched Earl drag the man along with incredible difference of energy. Earl was usually just your usual stay at home guy, never really doing things like even leaving the gates. Earl gave a motivating smile with half shut eyes "You can stay.." Earl set him down on a chair in the forge, he waved off everyone watching.

Earl's job never involved much other then smelting, smithing and selling, to go out, even a few meters was a thrill for a man like Earl, in such a well kept and uncompromising community. If Earl could help, he would. He believed the government used the infection as a worldwide disease to avoid war and as a population control. Earl always believed the government was hiding things, these things stuck with him, not that it matters but it's the little things, reminding them all of the lives they lived.

Philip had kept silent as the other came over with other members of the unknown group practically telling him not to go over. When the other man took his knife he willingly handed it over. He knew that trust in some form had to be there in order to make something work even after all the damage he had caused way back in the when. Hearing about a prosthetic immediately made him look at the half of his right arm that remained attached to his body. Lately he paid that arm no mind as if it wasn't there at all. He had absolutely no use for an appendage that couldn't do a single thing but sway back and forth. He went along with the man not knowing how to respond. Without human interaction he felt entirely out of place with the whole talking thing, and even all the pent up energy he wasted on anger was washed out almost entirely.

As he walked his single eye scanning across the colony of people that watched. When they were in the forge he was allowed to sit down and see that the other was giving a smile. At first it sent a pang of jealously through him to see that someone could still give a smile that wasn't entirely fake even after all this time, something that he couldn't do since he became a leader that led into just another survivor yet again. "I won't be any trouble." He wanted to believe his own words as that was what they once were, believable and genuine words.

His eye then trailed around the area of the forge taking it in that this other man was indeed a blacksmith. A job that almost felt like ancient history but somehow still lived in this place. "Do you all like this? Almost as if nothing's happening? Haven't seen a blacksmith or well ran community in what seems like a lifetime." His voice cracked at random intervals as his eye landed back on the other. "Been out on the road for a long while."

Earl gave a nod of approval as he cooled some blades, still scolding from the coals "We're in a silicon heaven here, there's stuff out there, it hardly effects us. Blacksmithing I guess is just what I'm trained for, pre world mess of course." Earl trailed himself over to the wall and dragged in a bag of coal, throwing handfuls into the forge, now mainly ash. As the fire roared upwards, the sun went down, leaving the light of the flames. Earl scanned the man "What's your name? I'm guessing a forearm fixture would do for your arm..." Earl lost himself in thought, thinking about a prosthetic design possible for the mans arm. Or what was left of it.

Earl called over to a moving cart. Fresh produce was given from it, Earl got double his usual, for this stranger of course: Apple, raisin, cinnamon, red pepper and a lot of carrot. "Here, half of this is for you." Earl halved the items and handed his half over to him, on a foil tray. Earl waved goodbye to the one giving good "Isn't it great? Like the world didn't fall apart around us..." Earl fiddled with Gregory's blade, watching the sky darken more.

As the other man spoke about how the outside world barely affected the group his jaw almost dropped. Philip had never seen such a thing in the longest time, and even when he had something usually disturbed the group in some way. "So you don't have any people or the dead bothering your group?" His voice held a tone of utter shock as he watched the other take care of the coal for the forge. The light for the fire illuminating the space. "I'm Philip. My arm?" Another spared glance was thrown in the direction of his arm and then towards the phantom piece of his mutilated appendage. When he looked back up at him he blinked a few times. "You don't have to worry about it. I've been like this for awhile now, been kind of used to it just hanging there."

Silently he sat there when the blacksmith was given food. At first he was ready to object but he couldn't stop himself from having his mouth water at actual food instead of an old energy bar. "Your group must have a tight ship running here if you have all of this. You're lucky for what you got here. Everything that was good for me was destroyed." He sighed remembering that piece of shit Lilly and how he trusted her causing a tense chill of anger down his spine, but not enough energy to show it in his body language. "You trade with other groups or just became lucky with what you found?" His eye trailed back down to the fresh produce that looked so good now more than ever.

Earl nodded in confirmation, "Not really bothering us, trading mostly." Earl of course meant the Saviors trade system, no one ever really saw their leader, almost and urban legend was their leader was named Negan. Earl studied Philip's torn arm, "Yes...your arm, the joint is gone, it's a tough craft without leather.." Earl lost himself to this logistical nightmare. Earl could do it, may take him a few days though, and leather to find, possibly a leather-like substitute was hard to get.

Earl skewered an apple and roasted it over his coals and flame, "You should try roasting apple, smokey." Earl hummed as he embraced the smoked flavour, "We are lucky, extremely. You've lost everything...well this is a kind of rehab for loss, we all went through hell for this." Earl picked up an ingot of steel and lay it on a grinder, "Mostly we make our own stuff, like me and the weapons." Earl, still savouring the taste of his unique roasted apple, started to grind some spare rusted iron to remove rust, to pass time.

Earl looked around to find his lanterns to light them, it was roughly 10pm at this point and he'd usually get some sleep by now. "Gregory...he's an asshole. Out leader." Earl snarled, swallowing apple formerly stuck in his teeth. Earl pulled out a notebook, written on most pages was scientific theories, government theories, smithing techniques and diagrams of weapons, "Where'd I be without this..." Earl smiled and Philip, thinking of teaching him to smith.

"So there are others around here? I wandered a long time, hell got lost even with a map until I saw some signs indicating I was heading north." Philip then saw him looking at his arm. He's never seen someone so interested in it in the slightest of ways. "I don't try to think about the arm anymore. It's a useless appendage now. I hardly even notice it."

When he saw the other roasting an apple at first he wondered why someone would do that, then when he said it was good slowly followed suit. "You all run a really tight ship here then. Never seen a camp like this." His eye then went over to watch Earl grind the rusted iron. To him this was something new. Even before the outbreak he was always secluded to the certain things that he liked otherwise he would've avoided it in some way with the not caring attitude.

"How's your leader an asshole? I thought everyone in a group looked up to their leader." His focus then went back onto the apple in front of him. It definitely looked different, but the smokey apple scent it gave off only made his stomach growl even more. "Any other groups that live around here? I don't need anymore trouble." He knew that if it came to it he would have at it, but he didn't have the energy at the moment.

"A few actually, we contact with the Sanctuary, Alexandria SZ and Kingdom. They're all north west." Earl loved to experiment new prosthetic smithing, creating a new joint had his mind racing in anticipation. "It's brilliant, no one wants a punch in the face with a steel hand! My job is now to make it not a useless appendage."

Earl liked to experiment, food next to smithing, using food was a pathetic think to do now, it would probably leave you in a mess for food."Quite tight, yes, me especially." Earl sniggered about his entire role and how he was going to do it for the foreseeable future. Earls weaponry was professional and fine made, like the food produce, in an apocalypse it had to of course be fit for consumption, Hilltop would go the extra mile.

"Yes, we should look up to him, but he looks up to himself, if only that bastard would care about us as much as we do about ourselves, he's arrogant and thinks so highly of himself, like he's a hero. He's a lazy coward. The Saviors bitch." Earl narrowed his eyes and drew a sketch in his notebook, a design for a new prosthetic. A five layered joint for the elbow replacement, he sketched optimistically, he drew a retractable forearm. "Trouble? Aye..they wear a ripped shirt instead of a swastika nowadays.." Earl looked up, shut his eyes and muttered to himself.

"Sounds like a good system then. It can be good to rely on other groups, but I'd be careful. Some people aren't always as good as they seem to be." Philip's mind flashed back to Woodbury and the prison and how that didn't work, not like he tried anyway. Trust wasn't always easy in his mind, not even with Lilly after the shit he caused him to go through. "Some people could use a good punch with steel, and if that's the case then I guess it's worth it." He decided to shrug his shoulders and rub his right arm. Sometimes he still felt phantom pain and the manipulated eye didn't help that fact either.

"Seems like it. A nice setup, a secure place, food, and people. Sounds like everything the world had but lost when everything went to hell." Even if he didn't entirely show it he was impressed. It was strange to be in a place that almost felt like the world still had humanity left inside of it.

"The Saviors bitch?" Philip repeated the words slightly confused. "So there is at least some conflict here." It didn't come out as a question anymore as it was obvious that there was at least a slight issue with the leader. "Why not just change the order of leadership to someone you trust can get things done even if it may be more brutal, but hell if it works then wouldn't that be better?" How he ran Woodbury popped back into his head. He didn't want to lead another group, but not seeing a group in so long made him feel strange with the human interaction and wanting the best for whoever was left, and that didn't include the ones he hated that still walked among the earth.

Earl chuckled huskily at the punching remark "Aye, damn straight!". Earl finally paid attention to Philip's eye...socket, Earl had a few leather patches laying around in his house. He'd often keep things of the sort just as decoration. Not fancy of course, who had time for even looking good in appearance nowadays, never mind keeping the home in order. "Your eye, concerning. You seem to cope, oddly enough." Earl took some soapy water and cleansed his beard, it was filled with soot and ash from the long day of smithing.

"I find it a damn privilege to be here, I could have been in the central city, that wouldn't have been pretty..." Earl took his bandana off and scratched his hair, as the ashes tingled beneath the bandana. "Best damn setup for miles."

Earl shook his head, "No conflict, he's just a boot licker." Earl threw more coals into the fire, one by one. Earl threw his head towards Philip, "Of course, if we wanted to be primitive, the brutality is what makes conflict! We'd be as bad as the ones out there!" Earl visioned a group of sick patients of a hospital, all being slit by the freaks who wanted anything with Opium in it. "We don't want to be like them...it would be worse, I'd rather have a coward for a leader than a tyrant."

Philip let out a slight grin as the other chuckled. A smile coming onto his face was the last thing he expected as it had been so long, but at the same time it was nice to have some normality broke back into his broken lifestyle. His right eye's focus was locked onto the floor ahead of him now. "My eye is concerning? It's been like this for a long time now. None of it bothers me anymore, I hardly ever notice it. It just becomes a part of who you are." He twisted the piece of food in his hand as he spoke. "Got a historical past for myself, but it's not worth remembering, just pisses me off."

He let out a snicker when Earl had mentioned a central city. "The cities went to shit early on. I went there in the beginning, somehow I luckily made it out with my daughter." He stopped playing with the food and set it down before looking back up at Earl. "Better to be an ass kisser then a tyrant is probably best." He licked his lips lightly as he took a deep breath swallowing down every memory that came to surface. Only one screw up with his choice of words could end his existence.

"Well I guess living under a coward is better then nothing. A group needs leadership, but at some point a coward will never be enough. They have to have an iron fist, and if they don't it makes them look weaker and like they are apart of a larger group instead of their own." With a slight shake of his head some of the black strands of hair fell in front of his face. "You can never be to careful nowadays."

Earl sharpened some blades, hoping to de-rust them. "I was in Richmond when it hit, had family there." Earl sharpened harder at the thought of his family. No matter how much you harden, losing family was always a kick in the teeth, some died with them, some died because of them. They were better off, it's hard to survive when you don't have people you love along side you. Earl didn't have that, hardly anyone did.

Earl abruptly dropped the blade to the ground. "And living under a hand is better than living under the gun." Earl twisted his long hair in a way to tighten his ponytail. He started to pack a bag full of his food and some coal, for his home fireplace. "I think it's time to call it a'day." Earl jolted up and swung the old sack of a bag over his shoulder and walked out of the small smithing hut. "If you want, you can stay with me until Gregory gets you situated." Earl offered to Philip, holding a hand out to help him up, figuring he was weak now from his travels.

Earl's home was a separate house to the other apartment building, of course Earl had earned this, smithing his way to success. His house consisted of 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, living room and a bath room. Polenta of room for Philip to rest, at least until he were to be settled elsewhere. The kitchen often smelt of apple as Earl would often roast apples there. Not quite the taste of char though.

Philip had fallen completely silent at the mention of a family. Everyone had lost people, especially their families. Most people became cold afterwards, but they all had to move forward in some way. As he saw Earl packing things up he just watched. Nothing was left to say in his mind as he came up with nothing until it was said that he would go home. At first Philip was about to say he would just leave but then he heard the offer. "If you want, but I don't think I'll be staying long. No sense in taking up space or wasting up space. Might leave in the morning or something."

He took Earl's offered hand and got himself up. His muscles feeling the ache for the first time since before he went numb after all the traveling. Philip's hand went straight into his pocket as he followed Earl back to his home. It had been a long time since he'd seen an actually clean home. "Nice place you got here. Not a true speck of dust anywhere to be seen which has to be a true first nowadays."

His finger rubbed along a piece of furniture almost like the white glove test to see nothing. "If only the rest of this world was civil again, but we've done terrible things out there. Don't know whether heaven accepts this behavior since this is what it has come to." Philip was no religious man, but his old friend that died right before he became the man he was always went on about these kinds of things whenever he saw fit. "Hell might just be the icing on the cake right about now. Seals the deal a little bit more with what we've become. People are bloodthirsty, and the dead are savages." He shook his head for a moment before snapping back into the reality in front of him.

Earl spoke up "This life is an unholy light, evil passing by but it's separated the good and bad." Earl nodded at his own words, a religious man himself, quite fond of his Christian beliefs. "If you were with the evil, you can run with the wolves. They know their fate so they can join their own degenerate kind out there. Always tyrannic. The petty thieves and rapists and the good are murderers, it's not easy to accept but we have to." Earl sat himself down on a chair and ate a pear from his previous delivery.

"You don't have to go, it's better here than anywhere else, and don't worry about it if you think you're being tracked, this place will muller them all." Earl looked in the corner to see a baseball bat, as it was in Philips line of sight, he had to say "Don't ever tell Gregory about that bat." Earl picked it up and swung it in pretence. "If you leave, lady death will soon catch up, go up high on a hill, she's still find a way to be there."

Earl smiled at Philip and happily sang "I know a poor man, a rich man, I know I've talked to a king!" Earl would sing giddily at random moments for about 2 minute or less intervals. "Do you close your eyes! When you're making...love!" He sung with his arms out wide, giving it his all. "See Philip? We can be happy here, all of us. Stay. Please." Earl asked with a wide smile.

Philip gave a nod as Earl spoke. "I'm no religious man, never have been. But sometimes I think that there may be, and if there is why they would play this sick game on the living. But then again I like to think if there was then what kind of hellish, sick joke are they playing on us?" He shook his head. "Acceptance. That's what everyone wants in some way." Carefully he leaned against a wall as he thought now to himself. He thought of the worlds evolution from what it was to now. The world had changed everyone, and that thought sent a hot tremor down his spine. Himself included was one of those victims to change under harsh circumstances that would never separate from him.

"Maybe just go take a walk, see what's around. I've never really looked around Washington. See what else is in the area. There's probably nothing but those groups you're trading with, but it's worth a shot. Maybe find my own stuff so I won't take yours." When he spotted the baseball bat he glanced at Earl. "Why would he care if you had a baseball bat or not? It serves as some sort of protection just in case." He wondered if the camp wasn't allowed to have any weapons on the people that lived inside the walled off colony. "The way you talk about Gregory doesn't sound like it'd be a big deal if he knew with him being a kiss ass coward."

As Earl began singing Philip couldn't help the smile that crossed his worn out features. A light laugh ripping up from his dry throat. "Well that was definitely something. Fine, I'll stay if I ever get the chance to see that again. That was entertainment right there, something that's usually perceived as long gone." It felt good to have a little fun, something that he truly did miss. Earl had been right, they could be happy. The only other thought that crossed his mind was for how long would it last?


End file.
